This application is based on Japanese Patent Application 2000-219109, filed on Jul. 19, 2000, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a music data providing system, and more particularly to a music data providing system for providing music data appended with advertisement data via a network.
b) Description of the Related Art
On-demand music data distribution services are provided recently on the Internet from a World Wide Web server to a user terminal or the like. One example of the user terminal is a personal computer. In this case, the personal computer accesses a WWW server via a communication unit such as a modem to download desired music data, and automatically plays the music data by using an external musical tone generator or by running a musical tone generator program.
Another example of a user terminal is an electronic musical instrument (refer to JP-A-8-106282) of the type that can download music data by connecting a communication apparatus such as a modem and automatically play it or etc. When music data is downloaded to such a personal computer or electronic musical instrument, a downloading user is charged with a predetermined price (including fees). The price charged to downloading generally contains a running cost of the download site, and in addition a copyright fee if the music program has a copyright.
Although it is desired to lower a service fee, it is difficult because there are fixed costs such as a cost of creating music data, a maintenance fee of a music data providing system, and a royalty.
An object of the present invention is to provide a music data providing system which can lower a distribution price for music data by appending advertisement data to the music data and receiving an advertisement fee from the advertiser.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a music data providing system which can advertise efficiently by displaying an advertisement and generating sounds to users of electronic musical apparatus in accordance with advertisement data.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a music data providing apparatus comprising: a memory that stores a plurality of music data and a plurality of advertisement data; a receiver that receives a request for a desired music data from a user via a network; an advertisement appending device that appends at least one advertisement data among the plurality of advertisement data stored in said memory to the music data corresponding to the received request; and a transmitter that transmits the music data appended with the advertisement data to the user via the network.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a music data receiving apparatus comprising: a transmitter that transmits a request for a desired music data to a server connected to a network; a receiver that receives an advertisement data and the requested music data transmitted from the server via the network; a display that displays advertisement corresponding to the received advertisement data; and a musical tone generator that generates musical tone in accordance with the received music data.
As above, a distribution price for music data can be reduced by appending advertisement data to the music data and receiving an advertisement fee from the advertiser.